“I had this big hole in my throat. I couldn’t breathe,” recalled Teefey, whose daughter, pop star and actress Selena Gomez, is also an executive producer on the show. “When it was over, (Asher) was silent for a moment. … Then he goes, ‘I could not be more happy right now and more impressed.’ And then I could breathe again.”

Related stories from The Tribune

Teefey, founder and president of Kicked to the Curb Productions, discovered “Thirteen Reasons Why” in 2008 while browsing at a Barnes and Noble bookstore.

“I picked it up and I stood there and I read the entire book,” Teefey recalled, “and then I called my daughter’s agent and said, ‘She has to be part of it somehow.’”

Asked what attracted her to “Thirteen Reasons Why,” Teefey said, “It was very lyrical and beautiful and sad.” But it was the book’s focus on bullying that spoke directly to her and her daughter, then the 15-year-old star of Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly Place.”

“When I was growing up, I was always bullied because I was the outsider, the weird girl with the purple hair and combat boots. Then I was a teen mom,” Teefey told the New York Times earlier this month. “You get really judged.”

In Asher’s story of a girl pushed to her breaking point, Teefey and Gomez saw a chance to set the record straight on how peer pressure can shape, and sometimes destroy, lives.

Teefey wanted to help viewers “understand how much pain someone has to be in to hurt themselves,” she said, adding that she feels that aspect has been glossed over in previous movies and TV shows dealing with teen suicide.

Some even portray the act as “a cinematic moment of honor,” she added. “There’s no speaking to the sadness that goes along with a life that’s lost.”

Not surprisingly, when Teefey and her team started pitching a big-screen adaptation of “Thirteen Reasons Why,” they encountered significant resistance from studio executives.

“(They said), ‘Teens won’t want to watch this,’” Teefey recalled. “I said, ‘You are underestimating the intelligence of this generation. This is going to be something that they’re going to talk about, and come back and watch again.’”

Others were put off by the fact that Asher’s book was originally written for young adults.

“With the bigger directors, all you have to say is ‘YA’ and they say ‘no,’” said Teefey, who got the same reaction from writers.

Then Teefey and her daughter met Yorkey, whose Tony Award-winning musical “Next to Normal” deals with a suburban mom living with mental illness.

“I felt for the first time that somebody got it,” Teefey recalled.

She had a similarly strong feeling about Netflix, the studio that picked up “13 Reasons Why” as a 13-episode series.

“Netflix wasn’t afraid” of the darker aspects of the story, Teefey said. “They got it and they wanted to go there.”

Filming for “13 Reasons Why” started in June at Bay Area locations including Marin, San Rafael and Sebastopol and wrapped up in November. Asher, who saw the first two episodes of the show at the wrap party, said he was awed by the results.

“I remember being very tense the entire two hours we were watching it because I was amazed by what I was seeing. It was so good,” Asher recalled. As the credits rolled, he said, he felt “a sense of relief but also of pride.”

Although the producers originally envisioned “13 Reasons Why” as a feature film with Gomez starring as Hannah (the actress aged out of the role), Teefey said the story lends itself to longer-form storytelling. Having 13 episodes “gives us more time to explore the characters,” she said.

“We need to understand where these kids … are coming from,” Teefey said, explaining that she wanted to “speak to an audience that I’ve seen really hurt each other more than love each other.”

“You literally watch her take her last breath. It’s so effective,” she said. “I want somebody, the next time they want to do something mean, to visualize (that scene),” she added, and think about how their actions affect other people.

San Luis Obispo author Jay Asher is the author of the best-selling book “Thirteen Reasons Why.” A Netflix series based on the novel premieres Friday, March 31, 2017. Joe Johnstonjjohnston@thetribunenews.com

San Luis Obispo author Jay Asher speaks at an assembly at his alma mater, San Luis Obispo High School, in 2014 as he kicks off his 50 States Against Bullying tour. Jay Asher’s best-selling book “Thirteen Reasons Why” is the inspiration behind a new Netflix show premiering Friday. Joe Johnstonjjohnston@thetribunenews.com

San Luis Obispo author Jay Asher speaks at an assembly at his alma mater, San Luis Obispo High School, in 2014 as he kicks off his 50 States Against Bullying tour. Jay Asher’s best-selling book “Thirteen Reasons Why” is the inspiration behind a new Netflix show premiering Friday. Joe Johnstonjjohnston@thetribunenews.com

1 of 13

Never miss a local story.

Sign up today for unlimited digital access to our website, apps, the digital newspaper and more.